World’s First Oral Blood Plasma Expander

Nathan Hinks and Chad Nicholls

Why Pumping Up With Plasmavol Is the Next Big Thing

Page 1

The topic of blood plasma expanders in bodybuilding is controversial, to put it mildly. Which pros are using blood plasma expanders and what type they’re using to step onstage in full-blown freak mode are questions hotly debated in weight rooms, supplement shops and online bodybuilding forums. While opinions vary, the most important question for you is, What can blood plasma expanders do for me?

Before we answer that, let’s nail down what blood plasma is and how pro bodybuilders are expanding it to gain a serious competitive edge. By the time we’re done, you’ll have the scoop on how to take your physique from ordinary to extraordinary.

What Is Blood Plasma?

Blood plasma is the yellowish-liquid component of blood. Approximately 90 percent water and 10 percent plasma proteins—albumins, globulins and fibrogens—plasma is the blood’s primary transport medium, carrying red and white blood cells and platelets throughout your body. It transports the vital nutrients, such as amino acids, creatine, glucose, minerals and vitamins; hormones, such as insulin, growth hormone and testosterone; enzymes, such as nitric oxide synthase; and oxygen to the cells. It also removes metabolic waste, such as carbon dioxide, ammonia and lactic acid.

So much for the technobabble. What you need to know is how blood plasma can help you develop a physique that’s built not just to compete but to dominate.

The Benefits of Plasma Expansion

Top pros have been (or least been accused of) using blood plasma expanders with names like dextran, mannitol and hetastarch through an IV drip that works while they’re asleep. Delivered in the veins the night before a show to draw subcutaneous water (it lies just beneath your skin) into the bloodstream, these substances improve vascularity and amplify that extra-dry, hard look.

Blood plasma expansion has practical applications for bodybuilders besides contest prep. The most notable is increased nutrient delivery to and waste removal from the muscles. By increasing blood plasma volume, you can provide more of the nutrients necessary for training harder and longer while also removing the fatigue toxins that inhibit muscular contraction.

The bottom line: You recover more quickly and increase your workload—the number of reps and sets you do and the weight you use—so you can pack on even more muscle and jack up your strength to Hulk-like proportions.

How Do Blood Plasma Expanders Work?

Let’s start with how the body distributes water. The human body consists of 70 percent water, three-quarters of it intracellular fluid (the water inside the cells) and the rest extracellular fluid. The extracellular fluid can be further categorized as interstitial fluid and blood plasma, which are separated by blood vessel walls. Nearly identical in composition, they have the same constituents—water, amino acids, glucose, free fatty acids, enzymes and hormones—and they continuously and freely mix with one another via semipermeable membranes of the blood vessels. The main difference is that interstitial fluid lacks the blood cells, platelets and proteins found in plasma.

Blood plasma expanders manipulate the distribution of water through osmotic pull. Translation: They draw water to them. Normally, expanders can’t pass through blood vessel membranes; hence the IV drip that shunts them into the bloodstream. Once there, they pull water from the interstitial fluid into the bloodstream, thus increasing blood plasma volume.

About now you’re probably saying, I understand how higher blood plasma volume can increase my gains, but no way I’m injecting something into my body. Fair enough, since until recently that’s exactly what you’d have to do. NxLabs researchers, however, have developed Plasmavol.

Led by world-renowned physiologist Darren Burke, who’s published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, the NxLabs research team was among the first to recognize the implications of blood plasma expansion for muscle growth, strength development and recovery. With that in mind, Dr. Burke and his team set out to overcome the limitations of other plasma expanders by developing a liquid formula that users could take orally.